Search This Blog

14th to 16th September - Vang Vieng

So, 13 of us took a mini bus with 12 seats to Vang Vieng... We all got to know each other pretty well on that journey. Traditionally for this part of the world, it took us just over an hour and a half longer than expected to get to Vang Vieng from Luang Prabang and the driver tried to con more money out of us en route.... Fortunately mob rule and raised voices won out in the end and he took us to the town centre for no extra cost.

That evening we headed out to fill our bellies. That's when we came across an amazing character called Mama Lao... She was hilarious and took a bit of a shine to me I think.... My fault for being my normal loud self. Mama Lau became a good contact in Vang Vieng for us and we spent many meals at her restaurant.

We enjoyed a hearty supper and headed to the Sunset Bar for a few beverages. It's an interesting place with a small bar staffed by Westerners and huts with hammocks in dotted around. We talked until the early hours and managed to find our way to bed around 2am it seemed. It was raining and navigating the west, puddle ridden mud paths was certainly an experience.

On the 15th September, we all went tubing. Now for those not familiar with tubing, it's essentially travelling down a river using a tractor tyre inner tube as a vessel stopping at every bar you pass along the way. There's 15 bars in total... It was a little hectic.

We all got ourselves prepared for the unknown and headed to the first bar in good spirits. The river looked to have a fairly strong current to it and I have to admit to initially feeling a little nervous... We had a beer for dutch courage.... and a shot of some noxious liquid.. the sun had passed the yard arm after all...

Some of the guys immediately headed to the zip wire which seemed entirely to high for brave little me... I watched as some performed and others face planted their way into the river... There were collective groans and cheers from the river bank as brave warrior after brave warrior lived their fate... Pete, I hope you're feeling a little less winded my friend...

It was time to hit the water. It was surprisingly and thankfully warm. Not being the bravest in cool water, it took a little time to jump in but eventually I was in the convoy heading to the next bar. Another beer and some dancing later (as well as the obligatory shot) and we were off to the next bar. You have fleeting friendships when tubing. You chat to other groups and then see them at perhaps the next bar and not after that.

I finally made the decision to do the zip wire at the next place. Ok so it wasn't quite as high as at the first place but I still strolled up confidentally and headed on my merry way... I was nervous taking off from the platform but managed to do my self proud and avoid injury on my first attempt. It was great fun and I'm so glad I did it.

A few bars later and I was sliding into the water on a monster water slide. Then we got to the last bar... Now, there's a rule about tubing which is never to be the last at the bar you're in.... Guess what happened... oh yeah, muggins here was last man standing at the bar and all the tubes had disappeared. You pay a 4 or 5 pound deposit so I wanted to make sure I returned with the tube. That's dinner and two beers in these parts after all....

Emma fortunately said I could share her tube and we were going to see about stealing a tube back from some other poor soul. With the two of us on the tube I felt every undulation of the bottom of the river. It was quite shallow after all and I have bruising on my bum still from where I took a few hits in the shallower waters.

We got back to Vang Vieng and the Sunset Bar... People were there and tubes were in plain view. I'm not proud but grateful to say that we managed to sneak a tube out of there and I got my deposit back... Law of the jungle my friends...

That night was messy and the next day we all split up. Some of us went to the south of Laos and some to Vientiane... It was the end of a great few days with an excellent group of people and I'll never forget the times we had together.

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Other Apps

Labels

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Winter 2014 Chapter 1 It’s
an inescapable feeling. You try to deny it, try to ignore it but eventually it
becomes you. There’s the knowledge that it’s wrong, what I do is wrong but
fight is not an option. It always wins… that desire… in the end… it always
wins. I
need to do this to feel normal… whatever normal is… that comfortable certainty
that makes people feel safe, the thing that avoids the unknown…the
undefined…and replaces it with the anticipated, the usual. Nothing
misunderstood, that’s normal. For me, that normal makes me feel nothing but
dead inside. There’s no spark. No life. Just monotony. I
know I’m not right. I know what I do deviates from the way of average people,
from the everyday position of human beings. But I can’t help it, I need it. At
this time, I need it. The way life is, it’s a temperature scale. The regular
position is cold, our standard life, go to bed at 10pm, get up at 6am, get
ready for work, go to work, come home, eat, sleep. It’s all cold. There’s no
passion…

Things are getting really close now. Mum is struggling with her back and I've had to start taking on more around the house. It helps now that we've started ante-natal classes and have been able to chat to some other pregnant couples.

We're very lucky in that our NCT group are great. We've met four really nice couples and we all seem to get on well. We went out for our first meal last week and have planned another for next week. It's great to be able to talk to people in the same situation.

In fact the way our NCT coordinator talks about the birth and the first few months, it almost feels like we're all a unit preparing to go into battle. There are so many different cries, emotions, signs we have to get to know about how baby's feeling plus there're all these warnings about sleep deprivation, strange occurrences at birth, cone heads, something called 'The Show',.... WTF!

It's been a hectic lead up to this point but finally, this week we found out we were definitely pregnant. It's an amazing feeling and one that we thought may not happen. I wanted to document the run in to becoming a dad for the first time. I hope I manage to keep it up in this blog.
Since we found out I find myself taking stock during quiet moments and steadily coming to terms with the reality that we about to realise a significant milestone in our lives.
It's an odd feeling because it doesn't quite feel real but yet I'm already planning ahead to when the moment arrives and I can hold baby in my arms. It's difficult to predict how that will feel and I'm trying not to be too methodical about the whole process. We should be enjoying this lead up. That's important.
It's exciting to plan ahead and today we went into London to look at baby things. It's only when you enter a shop like Mothercare for the first time where you're not …